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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University of Wellington Students Assn. Volume 40, No. 16. July 11 1977

Rev. Scott chides student apathy

page 3

Rev. Scott chides student apathy

"Late last year I seriously thought of doing a 'Martin Luther' on the University, I was going to write on a scroll all the occasions and situations in this city needing the back-up and the intellectural unput of the University and we didn't get it! I was going to pin my demands on the main door of the University. But I didn't because I didn't think anyone would have read them".

The speaker was Bob Scott, Director of Wellington's Inner City Ministry and a man who is heavily involved in questions of long term community development.

I am aware of student influence in the anti-apartheid movement and the anti-Vietnam movement; I have seen the fairly straggling lines of students wend their way from university to Parliament beneath banners of one kind or another; and I am acutely aware of the tremendously worthwhile role played by NZUSA in helping form Community Volunteers, as an agent of education and social change.

But I cannot recall any major student upheaval, any major student discussion and hot debate of recent years. As someone involved in community development, with community action groups and trying to come to terms with basic community issues, I must admit to considerable disappointment over university involvement in the city — and I would like to tell you why.

I understand that the University was concerned as an institution which would allow or encourage the development of critical minds, culture and critical thought and be of infinite benefit to society (which provided for its existence) in that it would consciously analyse the policies and trends of that society with a view to progressive and enlightened change.

I am also aware — as I know you are — of the criticisms aimed at the University. Because it is seen as an institution working in the direct interests of those maintaining the status quo. That it provides large numbers of individuals who have gained sufficient expertise in particular disciplines directly related to a need created by an ever-increasing technocracy.

And that the nature of university courses, which train such people, leaves little time, if any, to provide the student with an understanding of the role he or she is playing in society by taking up that particular discipline. It seems so often that the University can rarely provide the budding engineer, economist or lawyer with the opportunity to learn how the application of his or her particular discipline will affect the environment or detract from or add to the quality of life.

I hear students complain that the completion of their courses means they will be absorbed by an industrial complex whose final motice is purely one of profit. That the student's newly-gained expertise will be used to examine the most efficient means of exploiting natural resources allegedly in the interests of the nation, and they will very rarely be given the opportunity to examine the implications of that exploitation and the significance of that work. These may be cynical voices — but I've heard them and I sympathise with the dilemma. And I accept that they do have a serious effect upon the possibilities of student involvement and potential in community affairs. My observation is that few students are involved or appear to have the time to be so; that community development goes on, in the main, without the support, involvement, or, one might imagine, the awareness of the University.

Even in the midst — in NZ — of increasingly centralised government, of ever-complicating bureacracy and increasing pressures and manipulation from financial empires and overseas interests, I still find it very exciting and hopeful that community groups are emerging to take part in their own self-determination. People are able to coalesce round the issues.

I recall some of the major community ventures in Wellington over the last few years. And I do so in order to ask what university involvement there was in those ventures.

The Aro Valley fight for self-determination A community generated enough reaction against City Council planned redevelopment that the Council had to withdraw their plans and re-draw them in co-operation with the community. The methods and style of that community action constitute a prototype for other community action in New Zealand.

It's not difficult to understand that there are a lot of university students who live in that area. It's close to University and the rents are not as high. And yet, with a few notable exceptions, there were none of those people involved in the community action. You might say — as it's been said to me more than once:

"It's unfair to expect university students to become involved in such activities. After all, they are in the area for only a few short years, they spend most of their time at university. They have no real commitment to the area".

I refect that 'excuse'. Because, if it's true (and I suspect it is the excuse given in most cases), it implies commitment to the university community and rejection of the wider community — which is exactly where my complaint lies. It's not my understanding of the role or place of the university that it is committed to itself, but committed to the society which surrounds it — for which it seeks enlightened and progressive change.

Let's look at Capital Plan. When the ideas were being collected, with the few exceptions of people like Professor John Roberts and Laurie Evans, there was notable university absenteeism. You might say — as I have heard it said more than once:

"That's not very fair. Did you ask university people to take part? They probably would have responded if you had asked. Perhaps they didn't know it was on"? I reject that excuse. Capital Plan spent the equivalent of well over $50,000 on advertising. Full-page newspaper advertisement, constant radio ads. and plugs, even TV advertisements. Hundreds of Wellingtonians heard or saw them and joined in. I fail to see how university students are different.

As the convener for the NZ Coalition for Trade and Development — a loosely-knit coalition of people with an interest in development questions — let me comment on the absence of university students in our numbers. I think it might be because university students, despite the luxury of time and situation they have to think through some of the basic issues confronting our society, themselves are part of the general mood of society, i.e. increasingly self-centred and self-preoccupied. And I am not at all sure that there is not present within the University a marked element of elitism, which is such an essential part of racial prejudice.

As one involved in community development issues and the discussion of community matters, I must point to the relatively small involvement of the University as a whole and its members in particular. In an address focussing on the University and community action, I can merely point to the lack of it. What happens then is your affair.

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